There are different troubleshooting tools that can tell you the exact cause of the problem.  Similarly if your hard disk is crashed, then by using the right tool you can know the whether this crash is due to the mechanical failure or virus attack.  If your computer is not giving any power then the possible causes are related to the power supply, cables and motherboard.

 If your computer is giving the blue screen message while booting up, this may be due to the faulty hardware or software you just installed.  Restart the computer and press F8 continuously, select safe mode option from the menu and press enter.  In the safe mode uninstall any newly installed software or hardware and restart your PC again. 

This process will fix most of the errors. This is very important that you know the cause of the problem and after knowing the exact cause of the problem the troubleshooting is very easy. Before calling any technical support person first try it yourself.  You only need to have the right tools and techniques.  You can apply the same tools and techniques on most of the computers.

Software Troubleshooting

Corrupted software, misconfigurations, corrupted windows registry, outdated software applications and when a computer is under virus or spyware attack it generates a large number of errors.  To troubleshoot the software related errors in your computer the following steps are very helpful.

1. Install an up-to-dated antivirus and anti spyware program such as Norton Antivirus, Panda Antivirus, McAfee or Trend Micro Office Scan in your computer and regularly scan your computer for the viruses, adware, spyware, web worms and other known internal and external threats.
2. Update your windows based operating system regularly from the Microsoft website and install the latest patches and security updates.
3. Update your software applications from their vendor’s websites and install the latest patches.
4. Fix your Windows registry errors with a registry cleaner tool and delete the unused software and hardware invalid entries.
5. Don’t download any software from internet from an unauthorized source.
6. Uninstall the unused programs from your computer.  This way you will increase the free space and it will improve the performance of the hard disk.
7. If your computer is running very slow then uncheck the software applications to run at the startup.
8. If the software errors are related to any specific application then uninstall it and reinstall.

In Windows XP go to Start > Run > “Msconfig” (without quotes) and press enter.
Go to Startup and check the startup items, which you don’t want to run at the startup.     

9.  By increasing the physical memory in your computer, you can get the optimized performance from your computer.